Joe McGinniss, author of 'Fatal Vision,' dies at 71

Associated Press

Updated 10:09 pm, Monday, March 10, 2014

New York --

Joe McGinniss, the adventurous and news-making author and reporter who skewered the marketing of Richard Nixon in "The Selling of the President 1968" and tracked his personal journey from sympathizer to scourge of convicted killer Jeffrey MacDonald in the blockbuster "Fatal Vision," died Monday at age 71.

Mr. McGinniss, who announced in 2013 that he had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer, died from complications related to his disease. His attorney and longtime friend Dennis Holahan said he died at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass.

Few journalists of his time so intrepidly pursued a story, burned so many bridges or more memorably placed themselves in the narrative, whether insisting on the guilt of MacDonald after seemingly befriending him or moving next door to Sarah Palin's house for a most unauthorized biography of the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate.

Mr. McGinniss became best known for two works that became touchstones in their respective genres - campaign books ("The Selling of the President 1968") and true crime ("Fatal Vision"). In both cases, he had become fascinated by the difference between public image and private reality.

Mr. McGinniss was a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1968 when an advertising man told him he was joining Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign. Intrigued that candidates had advertising teams, Mr. McGinniss was inspired to write a book and tried to get access to Humphrey. The Democrat turned him down, but, according to Mr. McGinniss, Nixon aide Leonard Garment allowed him in, one of the last times the ever-suspicious Nixon would permit a journalist so much time around him.

"The Selling of the President" was a sneering rebuttal to Theodore White's stately "Making of the President" campaign books. It revealed Nixon aides, including a young Roger Ailes, disparaging vice president candidate Spiro Agnew; drafting memos on how to fix Nixon's "cold" image; and debating which black man - only one would be permitted - was right for participating in a televised panel discussion.

In 1979, Mr. McGinniss was a columnist for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner when an argument without end was born: He was approached by MacDonald, a fellow California resident, about a possible book on the 1970 murders for which the physician and former Green Beret was being charged.

In the early hours of Feb. 17, 1970, MacDonald's pregnant wife and two small children were stabbed and beaten to death at the family's home in Fort Bragg, N.C.

MacDonald had insisted the house was overrun by a gang of drug-crazed hippies in a murderous rampage seemingly inspired by the then-recent Charles Manson murders.

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But investigators suspected otherwise, believing that MacDonald killed his family and arranged the apartment to make it appear others had committed the crime. He was found guilty and sentenced to three consecutive life terms.

"Fatal Vision," published in 1983, became one of the most widely read and contested true crime books in history. Mr. McGinniss wrote not just of the case but also of his own conclusions. He had at first found MacDonald charming and sincere but came to believe that he was a sociopath who had committed the killings while in a frenzied state brought on by diet pills.

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